The nature and scope of jurisprudence -- Rights and justice -- Law and morality -- Classical and modern natural law -- Classical and modern legal positivism -- Legal realism -- Sociological jurisprudence -- Critical legal studies.

Music is an inescapable part of social, cultural and political life, and has played a powerful role in mobilising support for popular movements demanding social justice. The impact of David Bowie, Prince and Bob Dylan, for example, on diversity awareness and legislative reform relating to sexuality, gender and racial equality respectively is still felt; with the latter receiving a Nobel Prize in 2016 for ‘having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition’. The influence of these composers and (...) performers reached far beyond the concert hall. Conversely, musical propaganda has been a common feature of many dictatorships, most notably Nazism’s Adolf Hitler and Communism’s Joseph Stalin, and is still instrumental in the election campaigns of political parties. US President Donald Trump’s winning retro classic rock campaign playlist conveyed an idealised version of the past which aligned with the tastes and interests of his core constituency, and evoked feelings of nationalistic pride and patriotism. The eclectic selection of upbeat music effectively masked the underlying capitalist initiatives, corporate greed and allegations of financial impropriety that characterised both the Democrat and Republican campaigns. Although unable to impart meaning with the same level of precision as language, music has a potentially broader semantic capacity due to its greater elasticity. It constitutes a common language which has the ability to create a community of people that sings, speaks, reasons, votes and even feels the same way. Accordingly, this article explores the symbiotic relationship between music and law, identity politics and social justice, via the lens of musical semiosis. (shrink)

Since the Reformation and Enlightenment, the Western world has witnessed the incremental decline of religious influence. Yet, key legal protections and duties incumbent on civilians and state actors in both avowedly secular states and ruling theocracies, predominantly Islamic, are to a lesser or greater extent determined by religious values. Although it is often claimed that the modern secular state encourages the adoption of liberal values and allows for the formulation of general law according to the free will of its people, (...) the historical legacy of law and particularly its synthesis with the Judeo-Christian heritage is apparent. In the UK, the continuing centrality of religion in what purports to be a secular system of laws, is demonstrated by the introduction of elements of Sharia law. In an increasingly culturally-diverse society, the recognition of Islamic law may be interpreted as the tacit acknowledgement of the existing inherent faith influences which continue to inform many legal innovations, and represents an explicit attempt to rebalance the privileging of one set of precepts above another. It is suggested that religion continues to occupy a central position in lawmaking; performing a cultural, political, institutional and, importantly, symbolic role and this is evidenced for instance by the narratives which are imposed on individuals in relation to areas of topical significance such as matrimony, terminal illness, abortion, gender and sexual morality. This paper argues against those pronouncements of the retreat of religion in state affairs and, rather, reveals a set of key structural relations and signifiers which are informed by opinions redolent of, not least of all, a peculiar generic proscriptive religiosity. (shrink)

In this late modern era within which the basic values of life have been reordered (driven by globalisation, the corporate agenda and mass communication technologies), the individual has effectively been reduced to a mere abstraction. It might be argued that the rational, moral and humanistic concept of freedom has, to a great extent, been compromised by a consequent crisis within the intelligentsia. These groups, in particular the gatekeepers of a classical liberal approach to legal scholarship, are caught between the twin (...) evils of increased unreflective populism and pragmatism evident within many law schools and modern legal institutions. Although a contested term, defenders of the ‘socio-legal’ tradition, who place the humanities at the heart of legal research and education, are obliged to restate with increased determination the utility of the liberal arts and literature to the law profession and wider legal community. In a normative environment, law and narrative are inextricably linked and narrative poetry is not only invaluable to explaining the origins and location of the legal tradition, but also elicits a mode of understanding which transcends the boundaries of narrowlydefined legal hermeneutics—which often only addresses issues of an operational nature. French novelist Flaubert claimed “chaque notaire porte en soi les débris d’un poète” (Flaubert in Madame bovary (trans: Wall, G.), Penguin Classics, London, 1960: 269), paraphrased by American civil rights lawyer, Clarence Darrow, as “inside every lawyer is the wreck of a poet” (Lukas in Big trouble: a murder in a small western town sets off a struggle for the soul of America, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1997: 323). In an age of disenchantment, this paper explores the poetic form as an important medium within which to understand the nature and function of law in a society of differentiated individuals. (shrink)

What is it about evil that we find so compelling? From our obsession with serial killers to violence in pop culture, we seem inescapably drawn to the stories of monstrous acts and the aberrant people who commit them. But evil, Dr. Julia Shaw argues, is largely subjective. What one may consider normal, like sex before marriage, eating meat, or working on Wall Street, others find abhorrent. And if evil is only in the eye of the beholder, can it (...) be said to exist at all? In [this book], Shaw uses an engrossing mix of science, popular culture, and real-life examples to break down timely and provocative issues. How similar is your brain to a psychopath's? How many people have murder fantasies? Can artificial intelligence be evil? Do your sexual proclivities make you a bad person? Who becomes a terrorist? If you could travel back in time, would you kill baby Hitler? In asking these questions, Shaw urges readers to discover empathy and to rethink and reshape what it means to be bad. [This book] is a wide-ranging exploration into a fascinating, darkly compelling subject from a wickedly smart and talented writer."--Dust jacket. (shrink)

Information of high evidentiary quality plays a crucial role in forensic investigations. Research shows that information provided by witnesses and victims often provide major leads to an inquiry. As such, statements should be obtained in the shortest possible time following an incident. However, this is not achieved in many incidents due to demands on resources. This intersectional study examined the effectiveness of a chatbot (the AICI), that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and a cognitive interview (CI) to help record statements following (...) an incident. After viewing a sexual harassment video, the present study tested recall accuracy in participants using AICI compared to other tools (i.e., Free Recall, CI Questionnaire, and CI Basic Chatbot). Measuring correct items (including descriptive items) and incorrect items (errors and confabulations), it was found that the AI CI elicited more accurate information than the other tools. The implications on society include AI CI provides an alternative means of effectively and efficiently recording high-quality evidential statements from victims and witnesses. (shrink)

This paper summarizes some of the major concepts of Raimo Tuomela’s social ontology as it is articulated and defended in his most recent major works and provides a set of objections to it. It also suggests some ways to plausibly revise Tuomela’s analysis of social groups in order to evade our concerns.

IntroductionTranscranial magnetic stimulation is a consolidated procedure for the treatment of depression, with several meta-analyses demonstrating its efficacy. Theta-burst stimulation is a modification of TMS with similar efficacy and shorter session duration. The geriatric population has many comorbidities and a high prevalence of depression, but few clinical trials are conducted specifically for this age group. TBS could be an option in this population, offering the advantages of few side effects and no pharmacological interactions. Therefore, our aim is to investigate the (...) efficacy of TBS in geriatric depression.Clinical trial registration[https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/], identifier [NCT04842929]. (shrink)

William Burnside was one of the three most important algebraists who were involved in the transformation of group theory from its nineteenth-century origins to a deeper twentieth-century subject. Building on work of earlier mathematicians, they were able to develop sophisticated tools for solving difficult problems. His works are of enormous historical importance; they remain also a source of inspiration and information. The works of his contemporaries, such as Klein, Frobenius, Schur, have been published as also have the works of his (...) immediate successors such as Phillip Hall. All of Burnside's papers are reproduced here, organized chronologically and with a detailed bibliography. Walter Feit has contributed a foreword, and a collection of introductory essays are included to provide a commentary on Burnside's work and set it in perspective along with a modern biography that draws on archive material. This is the first reference volume of Burnside's collected papers, enhanced by a series of critical essays on his work, and is important for group theorists and historians and philosophers of mathematics and fills the gap in this area of literature. (shrink)

Abstract:Open neural tube defects or myelomeningoceles are a common congenital condition caused by failure of closure of the neural tube early in gestation, leading to a number of neurologic sequelae including paralysis, hindbrain herniation, hydrocephalus and neurogenic bowel and bladder dysfunction. Traditionally, the condition was treated by closure of the defect postnatally but a recently completed randomized controlled trial of prenatal versus postnatal closure demonstrated improved neurologic outcomes in the prenatal closure group. Fetal surgery, or more precisely maternal-fetal surgery, raises (...) a number of ethical issues that we address including who the patient is, informed consent, surgical innovation and equipoise as well maternal assumption of risk. As the procedure becomes more widely adopted into practice, we suggest close monitoring of new fetal surgery centers, in order to ensure that the positive results of the trial are maintained without increased risk to both the mother and fetus. (shrink)

In this thesis, the philosophical debate on conceptual relativism between Quine and Davidson is examined, along with their respective theories of interpretation. A new perspective on the issues raised by these philosophers in their theoretical accounts of linguistic comprehension is introduced through an examination of two research projects conducted in the paradigm of linguistic anthropology. The philosophical standpoints are analyzed against the background of the data these empirical projects deliver, and the question of their validity in the face of these (...) findings is explored. In the light of the presented research, Davidson’s account grounded in the principle of charity is deemed as more empirically plausible than Quine’s theory, which stands on the existence of alternative conceptual schemes. In addition, the current analysis itself is investigated as a case-study in the considerations regarding the relationship between empirical science and philosophy. (shrink)

We examined whether midazolam impairs short-term/working memory processes. We hypothesize that prior dissociations in midazolam’s effects on short-term/working memory tasks and episodic memory tasks arise because midazolam has a larger effect on episodic memory processes than on short-term/working memory processes. To examine these issues, .03 mg/kg of participant’s bodyweight of midazolam was administered in a double-blind placebo-controlled within-participant design. Performance on the digit span and category generation/recall tasks was examined. The results of Experiment 1 demonstrated that: midazolam impaired performance on (...) the digit span task; midazolam did not impair performance on the category generation task; midazolam impaired performance on the category recall task; and midazolam’s effect on category recall was four times as large as its effect on digit span. The results of Experiment 2 demonstrated that midazolam did not impair digit span performance when the digit span task was administered at a later time. These results suggest that midazolam can impair short-term/working memory processes, but these effects are substantially smaller than midazolam’s effect on episodic memory processes. Moreover, they demonstrate that conscious awareness of materials during study is not sufficient to produce episodic memory. (shrink)

Evidence that placebo acupuncture is an effective treatment for chronic pain presents a puzzle: how do placebo needles appearing to patients to penetrate the body, but instead sitting on the skin’s surface in the manner of a tactile stimulus, evoke a healing response? Previous accounts of ritual touch healing in which patients often described enhanced touch sensations suggest an embodied healing mechanism. In this qualitative study, we asked a subset of patients in a singleblind randomized trial in irritable bowel syndrome (...) to describe their treatment experiences while undergoing placebo treament. Analysis focused on patients’ unprompted descriptions of any enhanced touch sensations and any significance patients assigned to the sensations. We found in 5/6 cases, patients associated sensations including “warmth” and “tingling” with treatment efficacy. The conclusion offers a “neurophenomenological” account of the placebo effect by considering dynamic effects of attentional filtering on early sensory cortices, possibly underlying the phenomenology of placebo acupuncture. (shrink)

Body integrity identity disorder is a very rare condition in which people experience long-standing anguish because there is a mismatch between their bodies and their internal image of how their bodies should be. Most typically, these people are deeply distressed by the presence of what they openly acknowledge as a perfectly normal leg. Some with the condition request that their limb be amputated. 1 We and others have argued that such requests should be acceded to in carefully selected patients.1–4 Consistent (...) with this view, a group at the University of Sydney is developing a programme to better understand and treat BIID and to offer amputation if appropriate. In a recent paper, Patrone argues that such amputations should be prohibited.5 He suggests that authors supporting amputation in BIID depend on analogies with more familiar conditions and then claim that the ‘the desires, choices and requests of BIID patients should be held to exactly the same standards and treated with exactly the same respect as the desires, choices and requests of any more conventional patient’.5 He believes that these analogies are invalid and that therefore the arguments for amputation are invalid.Patrone concentrates a great deal upon whether a decision to have a particular medical intervention is to be regarded as ‘rational’. Unfortunately, he makes no attempt to define what he …. (shrink)

This Critical Guide offers detailed analysis of all parts of Plato's Gorgias, together with diverse perspectives on its advocacy of a philosophical, just life as against a life of rhetoric and injustice.

Joint attention (JA) is hypothesized to have a close relationship with developing theory of mind (ToM) capabilities. We tested the co-occurrence of ToM and JA in social interactions between adults with no reported history of psychiatric illness or neurodevelopmental disorders. Participants engaged in an experimental task that encouraged nonverbal communication, including JA, and also ToM activity. We adapted an in-lab variant of experience sampling methods (Bryant, Coffey, Povinelli, & Pruett, 2013) to measure ToM during JA based on participants’ subjective reports (...) of their thoughts while performing the task. This experiment successfully elicited instances of JA in 17/20 dyads. We compared participants’ thought contents during episodes of JA and non-JA. Our results suggest that, in adults, JA and ToM may occur independently. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:An Exposition of The Divine Names, The Book of Blessed Dionysius by Thomas AquinasMichael J. Rubin, Elizabeth C. Shaw, and Staff*AQUINAS, Thomas. An Exposition of The Divine Names, The Book of Blessed Dionysius. Translated and edited with an introduction by Michael A. Augros. Merrimack, N.H.: Thomas More College Press, 2021. xxv + 549 pp. Cloth, $65.00The profound influence that Pseudo-Dionysius had on Aquinas’s thought, especially in his (...) metaphysics of participation and his apophatic theology, has been known for some time now, thanks to the excellent work of such scholars as Fran O’Rourke. One would therefore think that Aquinas’s Exposition of the Divine Names (his only commentary on the works of Pseudo-Dionysius) would have been translated a lot sooner. This delay is assuredly due not just to the difficulty of translating this work but also to a certain embarrassment felt by Thomists over Aquinas’s sincere belief that the “Dionysius” who wrote the Divine Names was the Areopagite whose conversion at the teaching of St. Paul is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. That the author calling himself “Dionysius” was in fact a theologian writing in the fifth or sixth centuries has been well established by modern scholarship. Hence, Thomists may have felt tempted to discount or at least pass over the influence of this author on Aquinas since it is discomfiting to think that the Church’s greatest theologian accorded such authority to an imposter.Michael Augros tackles these concerns head-on in the excellent introduction to his new translation of the Divine Names commentary. First, Augros points out that in past centuries a pseudonym was usually not an act of forgery but, rather, a way of concealing the author’s identity, which an early Christian theologian might well decide to do either out of humility or out of a desire “to avoid provoking certain prejudices” in those who disagreed with him in contemporary theological disputes. Moreover, it is likely that the work was never intended for the general public (who could easily mistake the pseudonym as genuine) but, rather, was written for those “already initiated in a particular Neoplatonic school of Christian theology,” who would recognize the author as being “one of their own” but without knowing his precise identity. Finally, in taking the particular name of “Dionysius,” the author of the Divine Names was indicating his intention for the work: Just as the biblical Dionysius was a Greek philosopher who converted to Christianity, so the works of Pseudo-Dionysius [End Page 345] are an attempt to reconcile Greek philosophy with the Christian faith.It therefore seems likely, as Augros observes, that Aquinas would still have accorded a great deal of respect to the Divine Names even if he had learned the truth of the author’s identity. The work would not have had the same deuterocanonical authority for him that comes with being written by a direct disciple of St. Paul himself, but “the inherent cogency, coherence, and beauty” of Pseudo-Dionysius’s theology would have been the same. Hence, Pseudo-Dionysius would surely have earned from Aquinas the “docile attitude” appropriate “for a philosopher and theologian of the first order, such as Boethius.”That Aquinas was right to see the author of the Divine Names as a master philosopher and theologian becomes evident when one dives into the text itself, in which Aquinas sees a truly dazzling order, both externally and internally. According to Aquinas, the Divine Names discusses those truths about God of which there are intelligible likenesses in creatures, such as goodness or wisdom, whereas the truths about God of which there are sensible likenesses (for example, “when God is called a lion, or a rock”) are treated by Pseudo-Dionysius in The Symbolic Theology; meanwhile, in the lost or fictional work The Divine Characteristics, Dionysius claims to have treated those truths about God (such as the Trinity) that cannot be known through any likenesses in creatures.Aquinas finds a still more intricate order within the Divine Names itself. Since this work is dedicated to “the divine names by which the processions of God to creatures are manifested,” the plan of the work... (shrink)

In this paper we analyze relations between ontology in anthropology and philosophy beyond simple homonymy or synonymy and show how this diagnosis allows for new interdisciplinary links and insights, while minimizing the risk of cross-disciplinary equivocation. We introduce the ontological turn in anthropology as an intellectual project rooted in the critique of dualism of culture and nature and propose a classification of the literature we reviewed into first-order claims about the world and second-order claims about ontological frameworks. Next, rather than (...) provide a strict definition of ontology in anthropological literature, we argue that the term is used as a heuristic addressing a web of sub-concepts relating to interpretation, knowledge, and self-determination which correspond to methodological, epistemic, and political considerations central to the development of the ontological turn. We present a case study of rivers as persons to demonstrate what the ontological paradigm in anthropology amounts to in practice. Finally, in an analysis facilitated by a parallel between the first- and second-order claims in anthropology, and ontology and meta-ontology in philosophy (respectively), we showcase the potential for contribution of ontological anthropology to contemporary philosophical debates, such as ontological gerrymandering, relativism and social ontology, and vice versa. (shrink)

This paper presents a diagrammatic notation for visualizing epistemic entities and relations. The notation was created during the Visualizing Worldviews project funded by the University of Toronto’s Jackman Humanities Institute and has been further developed by the scholars participating in the university’s Research Opportunity Program. Since any systematic diagrammatic notation should be based on a solid ontology of the respective domain, we first outline the current state of the scientonomic ontology. We then proceed to providing diagrammatic tools for visualizing the (...) epistemic entities and relations of this ontology. These basic diagramming techniques allow us to construct diagrams of various types for both synchronic and diachronic visualizations. The paper concludes by highlighting some future research directions. As the notation presented here is de facto accepted and used in scientonomy, the paper suggests no modifications. (shrink)

In this paper we analyze relations between _ontology_ in anthropology and philosophy beyond simple homonymy or synonymy and show how this diagnosis allows for new interdisciplinary links and insights, while minimizing the risk of cross-disciplinary equivocation. We introduce the ontological turn in anthropology as an intellectual project rooted in the critique of dualism of culture and nature and propose a classification of the literature we reviewed into first-order claims about the world and second-order claims about ontological frameworks. Next, rather than (...) provide a strict definition of _ontology_ in anthropological literature, we argue that the term is used as a heuristic addressing a web of sub-concepts relating to interpretation, knowledge, and self-determination which correspond to methodological, epistemic, and political considerations central to the development of the ontological turn. We present a case study of rivers as persons to demonstrate what the ontological paradigm in anthropology amounts to in practice. Finally, in an analysis facilitated by a parallel between the first- and second-order claims in anthropology, and _ontology_ and meta-_ontology_ in philosophy (respectively), we showcase the potential for contribution of ontological anthropology to contemporary philosophical debates, such as ontological gerrymandering, relativism and social _ontology_, and vice versa. (shrink)

This study examined cancer patients’ perceived emotional and informational support from a variety of interpersonal and media sources. We recruited patients from cancer patient association websites and online cancer forums and asked them to report to what extent they received support from interpersonal and media sources. Patients rated professional sources and personal sources as nearly equal sources of emotional support; however, professional sources were rated as significantly greater sources of informational support. Although family and oncologists were the most mentioned interpersonal (...) sources of support, they were also the most mentioned disappointing sources. Of the media sources, online interaction sources were rated as nearly equivalent sources of emotional support as interpersonal sources. That patients perceived emotional support, not only informational support, from various media sources is promising since interpersonal sources can be disappointing to some patients. (shrink)

A short overview, written for a primarily scientific audience, of how conceptual analysis and philosophy of science can assist in nanoscience research.

This paper explores relationships between environment and education after the Covid-19 pandemic through the lens of philosophy of education in a new key developed by Michael Peters and the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia. The paper is collectively written by 15 authors who responded to the question: Who remembers Greta Thunberg? Their answers are classified into four main themes and corresponding sections. The first section, ‘As we bake the earth, let's try and bake it from scratch’, gathers wider philosophical (...) considerations about the intersection between environment, education, and the pandemic. The second section, ‘Bump in the road or a catalyst for structural change?’, looks more closely into issues pertaining to education. The third section, ‘If you choose to fail us, we will never forgive you’, focuses to Greta Thunberg’s messages and their responses. The last section, ‘Towards a new normal’, explores future scenarios and develops recommendations for critical emancipatory action. The concluding part brings these insights together, showing that resulting synergy between the answers offers much more then the sum of articles’ parts. With its ethos of collectivity, interconnectedness, and solidarity, philosophy of education in a new key is a crucial tool for development of post-pandemic education. (shrink)

Using fractal analyses to study events allows us to capture the scale-independence of those events, that is, no matter at which level we study a phenomenon, we should get roughly the same results because events exhibit similar structure across scales. This is demonstrably true in mathematical fractals but is less assured in behavioral fractals. The current research directly tests the scale-independence hypothesis in the behavioral domain by exploring the fractal structure of aggression, a social phenomenon comprising events that span temporal (...) scales from minutes of face-to-face arguments to centuries of international armed conflicts. Using publicly available data, we examined the temporal fractal structure of four scales of aggression: wars, riots, violent crimes, and body movement during arguments. Our results lend mixed support to the scale-independence hypothesis and provide insight into the self-organization of human interactions. (shrink)

We investigated family members’ lived experience of Parkinson’s disease aiming to investigate opportunities for well-being. A lifeworld-led approach to healthcare was adopted. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to explore in-depth interviews with people living with PD and their partners. The analysis generated four themes: It’s more than just an illness revealed the existential challenge of diagnosis; Like a bird with a broken wing emphasizing the need to adapt to increasing immobility through embodied agency; Being together with PD exploring the kinship (...) within couples and belonging experienced through support groups; and Carpe diem! illuminated the significance of time and fractured future orientation created by diagnosis. Findings were interpreted using an existential-phenomenological theory of well-being. We highlighted how partners shared the impact of PD in their own ontological challenges. Further research with different types of families and in different situations is required to identify services required to facilitate the process of learning to live with PD. Care and support for the family unit needs to provide emotional support to manage threats to identity and agency alongside problem-solving for bodily changes. Adopting a lifeworld-led healthcare approach would increase opportunities for well-being within the PD illness journey. (shrink)

In a highly influential work, List and Pettit (Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents, Oxford University Press, 2011) draw upon the theory of judgement aggregation to offer an argument for the existence of nonreductive group agents; they also suggest that nonreductive group agency is a widespread phenomenon. In this paper, we argue for the following two claims. First, that the axioms they consider cannot naturally be interpreted as either descriptive characterisations or normative constraints upon group judgements, (...) in general. This makes it unclear how the List and Pettit argument is to apply to real world group behaviour. Second, by examining empirical data about how group judgements are made by a powerful international regulatory board, we show how each of the List and Pettit axioms can be violated in ways which are straightforwardly explicable at the level of the individual. This suggests that group agency may best be understood as a pluralistic phenomenon, where close inspection of the dynamics of intragroup deliberation can reveal that what prima facie appears to be a nonreductive group agent is, in fact, reducible. (shrink)

Music is a natural human expression present in all cultures, but the functions it serves are still debated. Previous research indicates that rhythm, an essential feature of music, can enhance coordination of movement and increase social bonding. However, the prolonged effects of rhythm have not yet been investigated. In this study, pairs of participants were exposed to one of three kinds of auditory stimuli (rhythmic, arrhythmic, or white‐noise) and subsequently engaged in five trials of a joint‐action task demanding interpersonal coordination. (...) We show that when compared with the other two stimuli, exposure to the rhythmic beat reduced the practice effect in task performance. Analysis of the behavioral data suggests that this reduction results from more temporally coupled motor movements over successive trials and that shared exposure to rhythm facilitates interpersonal motor coupling, which in this context serves to impede the attainment of necessary dynamic coordination. We propose that rhythm has the potential to enhance interpersonal motor coupling, which might serve as a mechanism behind its facilitation of positive social attitudes. (shrink)

This paper aims for a more robust epistemological disjunctivism (ED) by offering on its behalf a new and better response to the ‘new evil genius’ problem. The first section articulates the ‘new evil genius challenge’ (NEG challenge) to ED, specifying its two components: the ‘first-order’ and ‘diagnostic’ problems for ED. The first-order problem challenges proponents of ED to offer some explanation of the intuition behind the thought that your radically deceived duplicate is no less justified than you are for adopting (...) her perceptual beliefs. In the second section, I argue that 'blamelessness' explanations are inadequate to the task and offer better explanations in their place—that of ‘trait-level virtue’ and ‘reasonability’. The diagnostic problem challenges proponents of ED to explain why it is that classical internalists disagree with them about how to interpret 'new evil genius' considerations. The proponent of ED owes some error theory. I tackle this problem in the third section, arguing that classical internalists overlook disjunctivist interpretations of new evil genius intuitions owing to a mistaken commitment to a ‘vindicatory’ explanation of perceptual knowledge. (shrink)

Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST), an influential life-span theory, suggests that older adults prefer persuasive messages that appeal to emotionally-meaningful goals over messages that appeal to knowledge-related goals, whereas younger adults do not show this preference. A mixed-factorial experiment was conducted to test whether older adults (≥65 years) differ from younger adults (25–45 years) in their preference for emotionally-meaningful appeals over knowledge-related appeals, when appeals are clearly developed in line with SST. For older adults we found the expected preference for emotionally-meaningful (...) appeals for cancer centers but not for grocery stores and travel organizations. As expected, in most cases, younger adults did not show a preference. Implications for SST-based communication research and for practice are discussed. (shrink)

Epistemological disjunctivism says that one can know that p on the rational basis of one’s seeing that p. The basis problem for disjunctivism says that that can’t be since seeing that p entails knowing that p on account of simply being the way in which one knows that p. In defense of their view disjunctivists have rejected the idea that seeing that p is just a way of knowing that p (the SwK thesis). That manoeuvre is familiar. In this paper (...) I explore the prospects for rejecting instead the thought that if the SwK thesis is true then seeing that p can’t be one’s rational basis for perceptual knowledge. I explore two strategies. The first situates disjunctivism within the context of a ‘knowledge-first’ approach that seeks to reverse the traditional understanding of the relationship between perceptual knowledge and justification (or rational support). But I argue that a more interesting strategy situates disjunctivism within a context that accepts a more nuanced understanding of perceptual beliefs. The proposal that I introduce reimagines disjunctivism in light of a bifurcated conception of perceptual knowledge that would see it cleaved along two dimensions. On the picture that results perceptual knowledge at the judgemental level is rationally supported by perceptual knowledge at the merely functional or ‘animal’ level. This supports a form of disjunctivism that I think is currently off the radar: one that’s consistent both with the SwK thesis and a commitment to a traditional reductive account of perceptual knowledge. (shrink)

A consideration of Confucian ethics as a living ethical tradition with contemporary relevance.

ABSTRACTHindsight bias is the tendency to overestimate one’s prior knowledge of facts or events once the actual facts or events are known. Several theoretical frameworks suggest that affective states might influence hindsight bias. Nondysphoric participants in negative or neutral mood, and dysphoric participants generated and recalled answers to difficult knowledge questions. All groups showed hindsight bias, that is, their recalled estimates were closer to the correct answer when this answer was shown at recall. Multinomial modelling revealed, however, that under dysphoria (...) and induced negative mood different processes contributed to hindsight bias. Dysphoria, but not induced negative mood, was associated with a stronger reconstruction bias, compared with neutral mood. A recollection bias appeared in neutral, but neither in induced negative nor dysphoric mood. These findings highlight differences between the cognitive consequences of dysphoria and induced negative mood. (shrink)

You don’t know that p unless it’s on account of your cognitive abilities that you believe truly that p. Virtue epistemologists think there’s some such ability constraint on knowledge. This looks to be in considerable tension, though, with putative faith- based knowledge. For it can easily seem that when you believe something truly on the basis of faith this isn't because of anything you're competent to do. Rather faith-based beliefs are a product of divine agency. Appearances notwithstanding, I argue in (...) this paper that there’s no deep tension between faith-based knowledge and virtue epistemology. Not if we learn to conceive of faith as a kind of extended knowledge. (shrink)

This essay situates the major works of W.E.B. Du Bois and some of his minor work between the 1880s and 1940 in the historical context of black people's writing about race since the eighteenth century. In offering examples of the evolution of black thinking and writing on this topic, it views Du Bois's work in the context of Moral and Ethical Philosophy (rather than the more obvious History, Sociology, and Political Economics) in order to reveal his efforts as a disruption, (...) deliberately designed to shift the discussions of race and race relations from defense to offense, which he did most explicitly and profoundly in Dusk of Dawn (1940) but had been doing much more subtly throughout his scholarly career. (shrink)

This book takes on two main tasks. The first is to argue that anti-hedonism lies at the center of Plato's critical project in both ethics and politics. Plato sees pleasure and pain as our sole sources of empirical evidence about good and bad. But as sources of evidence they are highly fallible; contrast effects with pain intensify certain pleasures, including most pleasures related to the body and social standing. This leads us to believe that the causes of such pleasures (e.g. (...) food, drink, sex, status) are greater goods than they are, and greater goods than other, more important goods (e.g. virtue, knowledge). As a result, hedonic error produces the belief that vice, including injustice, can be prudent. Hedonic error leads to other misconceptions of virtue as well, such as that wisdom is weak and can be ruled by the passions. These cognitive distortions can only be corrected by reference to some non-hedonic standard, so hedonists reliably fall prey to them. This entire system of attitudes—hedonism and its associated misconceptions of virtue—is widely held and constitutes popular morality. Popular morality's basic source is hedonic error, but it is also transmitted and sustained in society through shame and fear of punishment. However, avoiding shame and punishment requires a sort of double-think: adherents of popular morality must accept certain views that they cannot acknowledge too clearly or too publicly. For example, they must hold that injustice can be prudent and must be willing to wrong out-groups (e.g. another city), but openly acknowledging this same view threatens in-groups (one's own city) by implying willingness to wrong some in the city to benefit a closer in-group (e.g. one's class, clique, or family). // -/- The book's second task is to tackle a seeming outlier to Plato's anti-hedonism: the _Protagoras_, where Socrates appears to defend hedonism. I argue that the _Protagoras_ actually perfectly illustrates Plato's anti-hedonism, as explained above. Protagoras and other sophists think they shape public opinion, but in fact they have internalized popular morality through shame and fear. As a result, Protagoras accepts but refuses to openly endorse three parts of popular morality: that injustice can be prudent (333c), that pleasure is the good (351c-d), and that wisdom is weak and can be ruled by the passions (352c-d). Each time, his concealed view is (aptly!) attributed to "the many". So, when Socrates appears to endorse hedonism in the _Protagoras_, he actually introduces and develops the view as part of his examination of Protagoras' covert ethical commitments. (shrink)

This paper argues that Socrates does not claim to be a political expert at Gorgias 521d6-8, as many scholars say. Still, Socrates does claim a special grasp of true politics. His special grasp (i) results from divine dispensation; (ii) is coherent true belief about politics; and (iii) also is Socratic wisdom about his own epistemic shortcomings. This condition falls short of expertise in two ways: Socrates sometimes lacks fully determinate answers to political questions, and he does not grasp the first (...) principles of politics. (shrink)

A consideration of Confucian ethics as a living ethical tradition with contemporary relevance.